A collection of useful web articles
Graphic Design
Small Business? Big 20% Savings On Graphic Design And Advertising From January 2011!
Dec 9th
Simon Bell Design is a graphic design company based in Peterborough that offers seriously good design and exceptional value for money. You only need to spend a few moments looking at our work online at www.simonbelldesign.co.uk to appreciate what we have to offer.
Simon Bell Design is geared up to help small businesses grow in difficult economic times by providing a high level of graphic design without the design agency premium. During the past year we’ve helped all kinds of business capture a bigger market share by working with them on all manor of projects. From brand design, website design, press / magazine ads, exhibition graphics, leaflets and flyers we’ve done it all and importantly, we’ve provided our services at a great price!
In January 2011, VAT will hit 20% which is bad news for small businesses but like these small businesses, Simon Bell Design IS NOT a massive design agency but a small company that doesn’t charge VAT. This means by choosing to work with Simon Bell Design not only do you save 20% by not being charged VAT but you also get a free design consultation so you have nothing to lose by getting in touch with us and remember, investment in advertising can be written off against tax.
We realize that it’s important to advertise but do you? If you look at the big companies they will always carry on pushing there products and services because they have big budgets we all know this but smaller companies that advertise can take a big slice of the action during difficult times by simply advertising in the right places. A great example is through local magazines which seem to be everywhere these days. They’re usually delivered to you door every month and are free of charge so they get everywhere. We’ve worked with lots of companies that advertise this way. Other ways are flyers and leaflets hand delivered which again is a very cost effective way to promote your business or service. The best and most cost effective form of advertising in the long run is an investment in a good website. This could be more beneficial in the long run than advertising in book directories in our view. It’s important to invest correctly though in design, copy and SEO if you want it to work well though!
We’d love you to get in touch with us but there are lots of other small graphic design companies out their – you just need to find one! It’s important to build up a good relationship with any design agency because this way you’ll get the best work from them – we know this! Start shouting the odds or being aggressive in your approach and creative folk start getting less creative and that’s because 99% of graphic designers love what they do!
Remember, if you’d like to have a look at what Simon Bell Design has to offer then please spend a few moments on our website – be sure to visit the portfolio page where you’ll be able to see samples of what we do!
Readers who are looking for information about web traffic, make sure to visit the web page that was mentioned in this passage.
Thinking About Getting A New Company Website? Then This Must Be Worth A Few Minutes Of Your Time | Then This Is A Must Read
Oct 20th
One of the most important marketing tools you’ll ever have is a good company website to showcase your products or services. With so many companies providing services to get your company online it can be a little confusing and to anyone who doesn’t know that much about the way websites work, it can be easy to trip up and potentially invest your money in something that won’t work well online for you .
So how does a good website work? We there are many factors to consider but we’ll break them in to three simple sections:
1.) Design: When people hit on your site they will be presented with graphics first – this is key to forming many choices.
2.) Build / hosting: This part is where the site is broken down in to code ready to be hosted and put online
3.) Search Engine Optimisation: This is really important if you’re going to be found online via key word searches on search engines like Google.
All three of the above are extremely important when considering your company website and here’s why:
DESIGN – The front end: This is what you see when you visit a website online. It’s incredibly important to capture your target audience – research suggests that a visitor to your website will take just 3 seconds in making a decision whether to read further about what your company offers or simply go to the next relevant website. You will with out doubt have to invest in the best possible graphic design to gain an instant like from visitors to your site which will involve clean graphics and ease of navigation. Your site is an advert for your company so strong advertising with popular related products or services is key to hooking the visitor and getting them to interact with the site and there are several ways to do this both with graphic and text.
The text on your website is very important too because search engines like Google read your website. When someone types in a key work or phrase the search engine will then scan the web and find a site that matches the search criteria. Writing text for websites is part of something called Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short and I’ll come back to this shortly.
BUILD and Website Hosting: This stage involves taking the work generated in the design stage and converting it in to files ready for the web. During this stage graphics are ‘sliced up’ compressed and coded ready to be displayed on the Internet. This is an example of what the coding looks like taken from Google’s UK home page – looks confusing if you don’t understand this stuff!
This is just a very small section of HTLM coding and there are many other types of coding to such as JAVA, FLASH, PHP and more. Each type of code works in a way best suited to delivering content online within a website. After the site has been coded a company will host the site for you, look after email accounts and ensure that the site runs smoothly. This job has to be done well and is where design meets coding. Both the designers and coders need to have an understanding of the way each other work to be able to deliver a great looking, functional website.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Optimisation of your website for search engines is a must because with out it you might as well lock you website up in a volt and forget about it because no-one will ever find it and what would the point of that be! So what is SEO? Well basically search engine optimisation provides information about your site to search engines like Google. SEO can be seen as text in your website and as code like the above.
Creating the right type of text to be displayed as information for visitors of your website is important for SEO. This text it needs to be content rich in keyword and phrases because this is what search engines are looking for. It’s important not to go over the top with keywords and phrases for two reasons; one it won’t read correctly and two the website could be seen as span and not rank well or even at all in the search engines. You’ll also need to ensure that the correct titles, meta heads and discriptions etc are used. This part of SEO is around 35% of how a search engine like Google ranks your website.
The other 65% is how search engines evaluate the importance of your website and this information is provided to the search engines via links to your website and also how often your website is updated. Links to your website mean the search engines see your site as more important than other sites and therefor give it a higher ranking which is what you want as this give your site the best chance of being discovered. Links can come via other sites to your site and the more links you have the better the results will be. Here is an example: The White House in America has a Google ranking of 10 which is the highest awarded ranking and is extremely rare. It gets lots of links because alot of people blog about it and there are many sites on the web with links to it so Google sees this as important. You website will need links and SEO companies can provide this service for you but you can do some of this work yourself through social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.
Depending on the functionality of your website and what you need it to do for you will depend on the amount of budget you need to set aside. A simple style brochure site is the most cost effective way to get you business online. This could be a simple four page site with an online contact form for visitors to find out a little about your services and get in touch with you. Or if you’re planning to sell products online you would be better off opting for a larger site with complete content management system (CMS) build in to automate the online sales side of things.
What you shouldn’t do is adopt ‘a that will do attitude’ to getting a website produced because this will nearly always result in a wasted investment do to the site not functioning well due to skimping on one of the three main issues I’ve talked about here.
Simon Bell Design can help you to get the correct website for your business. A small brochure style site will cost around the same as a Yell directory and online campaign. Done correctly a website will work much better for you and your investment over the coming few years will be far less so you can see that investment online is a very good marketing tool for your business.
Who Cares About Startup Colour
Oct 1st
A dream, a thought or a whisper, whatever way it comes to you, a great new business idea always ends up being far harder to realise than it ever did when you first thought of it. Along the road to success, most, if not all good businesses will put together a business plan, which we all know is boring and onerous, but required if you want it to work.
There are also a ton of other things to think about, banking, finance, accountancy, payroll, a website and you’ll probably need a decent logo for maximum impact.
Even if your idea is more killer than Facebook and has bigger profit projections than Microsoft, theres little point in taking shortcuts when it comes to your logo, especially as without one, you arent going to get recognised. So, it won’t surprise you to know, its exceptionally important to get the right logo designer to help your great idea get off the ground.
Even getting this right, you still need to have a document that details what you want from your logo and what you are aiming to achieve, most logo designers are good, but they arent magicians!
The first thing you need to decide for your logo design is colour, or colours. In deciding a colour scheme, you will also need to factor in what you want your website to look like, what you need on business cards and stationary and understand the impact of certain colours in different industries.
For example, if your company is a bakery, then having pink as your primary colour might not work, but beige, pastels and other food friendly colours will. Fast food is an obvious industry which adopts fairly standard colours of red, yellow and white, but dont be afraid to break them mould like McDonalds did recently with its dark green and yellow.
If you have a high street presence, then make sure you take this in to account as visibility is everything and if you are a mobile phone company, then your colour pallete is probably very big and you can take some risks. For the more professional line of business like a dentist or dedicated medical expert, then green and white are excellent colours and even red can be used to highlight the danger as long as its used in a positive way!.
So the next time you get a great idea for a business and you start putting it together seriously and spend a little time researching your competitors, don’t forget to check out their logo and more importantly if there is a trend with the colour schemes they use, it might just make or break your business.
What Makes a Great Graphic, Multimedia and Web Design Company?
Apr 12th
Why do you need a graphic, multimedia and website design company? Specific reasons vary, but they all boil down to one thing: a memorable and creative design that conveys exactly the image you want your customers to retain about your business. A graphic, multimedia and web design company is “great” if it can provide you with just that.
Even if you don’t know much about designing, there are ways of telling whether or not you are in good hands. First, you should look at the samples of former work and see how you like them; past work is indicative of the designers’ prowess and creativity.
As soon as you find a design company that produces outstanding designs, talk to them to ascertain if they are capable of transforming the image you have in mind for your business into a workable and memorable graphic design, print design, multimedia design/presentation, and web design for your company. Experts should stand out; they will know the field of design so thoroughly that they will be able to come up with samples that “strike the right chord,” whatever the design platform.
A great design company also has integrity. It should not overcharge just because you don’t know any better, and it should be professional enough to respect the time frame you have set.
Of course, great service is also crucial. If you’ve received only personalized service from the moment you have contacted the company for a quote, then you know you’ve found a company that will listen to you and take good care of you – and that can only be a good thing, don’t you agree?
How to Trademark: This could be on a word, symbol, design, or name
Mar 19th
Knowing how to trademark something that will represent you or your company is important. This is how manufacturers can distinguish themselves from their competitors. It is also how they can become a brand name.
Knowing all the ins and outs of trademarks and what is involved takes a legal degree in this specific area. To file a company name is a simple task just as long as no one else has already done so. Just because you have not heard it being used does not mean it has not been taken nor a trademark been filed yet.
To file a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office, you can go to www.uspto.gov and apply. The process can take less than an hour and a half. To help speed this process up and prevent a rejection, which would mean all your time has been wasted, it is advise that you search the TESS database to make sure what you are attempting to file has not previously been taken.
The TESS is the Trademark Electronic Search System. This is the place where you can determine if what you are wishing to trademark is available. If it is already listed, then it is time to think of another trademark.
In the United States, a trademark is granted to the first company or individual that uses a particular item, symbol, or word in a geographical area. This is until someone registers it. Then it is immaterial who came up with it.
These factors are all a part of how to trademark what you wish to represent your company.
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